Amazon Begins Housing Homeless In Seattle

reifman writes: Amazon announced that it will commit one of its buildings to housing 200 Seattle homeless people for the next year, allowing a nonprofit organization to oversee the facilities… With more than 4,505 living on the streets, Seattle’s mayor recently declared a homelessness emergency… More than 45 people died on the streets in 2015, heroin related deaths in King County are at a 20-year high, and neighborhoods are up in arms about homeless drug use, crime and people living in cars.

The Seattle Times notes that Amazon’s construction on the lot isn’t scheduled until 2017, so they reached out to the homelessness nonprofit to temporarily offer its use, hoping to later offer the group a second site. (The nonprofit will pay the site’s utility bills).